ed the majesty of the empire. The
troubles excited by the usurper Firmus in the Upper Egypt had never been
perfectly appeased, and the cities of Ptolemais and Coptos, fortified by
the alliance of the Blemmyes, still maintained an obscure rebellion. The
chastisement of those cities, and of their auxiliaries the savages of
the South, is said to have alarmed the court of Persia, [32] and the
Great King sued in vain for the friendship of Probus. Most of the
exploits which distinguished his reign were achieved by the personal
valor and conduct of the emperor, insomuch that the writer of his life
expresses some amazement how, in so short a time, a single man could be
present in so many distant wars. The remaining actions he intrusted
to the care of his lieutenants, the judicious choice of whom forms
no inconsiderable part of his glory. Carus, Diocletian, Maximian,
Constantius, Galerius, Asclepiodatus, Annibalianus, and a crowd of other
chiefs, who afterwards ascended or supported the throne, were trained to
arms in the severe school of Aurelian and Probus. [33]

[Footnote 29: The date and duration of the reign of Probus are very
correctly ascertained by Cardinal Noris in his learned work, De Epochis
Syro-Macedonum, p. 96--105. A passage of Eusebius connects the second
year of Probus with the aeras of several of the Syrian cities.]

[Footnote 30: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 239.]

[Footnote 31: Zosimus (l. i. p. 62--65) tells us a very long and
trifling story of Lycius, the Isaurian robber.]

[Footnote 32: Zosim. l. i. p. 65. Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 239,
240. But it seems incredible that the defeat of the savages of Aethiopia
could affect the Persian monarch.]

[Footnote 33: Besides these well-known chiefs, several others are named
by Vopiscus, (Hist. August. p. 241,) whose actions have not reached
knowledge.]

But the most important service which Probus rendered to the republic was
the deliverance of Gaul, and the recovery of seventy flourishing cities
oppressed by the barbarians of Germany, who, since the death of
Aurelian, had ravaged that great province with impunity. [34] Among the
various multitude of those fierce invaders we may distinguish, with some
degree of clearness, three great armies, or rather nations, successively
vanquished by the valor of Probus. He drove back the Franks into their
morasses; a descriptive circumstance from whence we may infer, that the
confederacy known by the manly appellation of